


the sun will rise (phantoms in the night)

by absolutelyamethyst



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben is in this too, Everyone is tired of Poe's crap, Finn is tired of Poe's crap, Force Sensitivity, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Jedi Rey, Multi, Poe "when I'm forced to sit still I BREAK THINGS" Dameron, Poe is tired of Poe's crap, Poe refuses to call Ren Ben, Poe-centric, Unbeta'd, angry Poe, author really just wanted to write angry Poe breaking things, briefly though - Freeform, could be considered pre-ship, powerful bb Poe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25986964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutelyamethyst/pseuds/absolutelyamethyst
Summary: "Everyone has their ghosts," Ren says, wistful. "You're one of mine."Poe stares at him, dumbfounded. "Excuse me?"Alternatively: Poe and Finn are drawn to Jakku, Rey has unfinished business to settle on her old homeworld, and Ben really wants to make sure that Rey isn't completely alone.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624975
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	the sun will rise (phantoms in the night)

**Author's Note:**

> God, this is probably such a mess and I'm so sorry!! After it went over the 4k mark though, there was no way I wasn't posting this, so plz plz plz forgive any OOC-ness, it always happens when I write these guys.

_thing about ghosts, Poe knows, is that they never really leave you._

_the thing about being Force-sensitive, he’s learning, is that sometimes you don’t really get a choice._

~

_He’s on a planet somewhere--a hot one, covered in sand, the air around him rippling with a heat that tears him apart from the inside out._

_He’s standing on a sand dune, looking down on...a desert full of more sand. There’s a town in the distance, maybe, but the air is swirling and he can’t tell if what he’s seeing is really real or just a mirage. His head aches. His throat feels like he hasn’t had water in weeks._

_What is he doing here? This is--_

_“Jakku,” a voice whispers, and Poe turns around to find absolutely no one standing behind him--or anywhere near him, for that matter. He’s alone, surrounded by swirling sands and angry wind. “Jakku.”_

_So he’s on Jakku. Where Rey’s from. Where he and Finn crash-landed all those months ago. Jakku is a whole-lotta-nothing planet, an empty hellhole filled with scumbags and slavers. Everything Rey’s told him about it’s made him want to rip the place apart._

_So why…_

He wakes up, opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. Blinks. Bites his lip as he sits up, scrubbing his hand over his face. 

_Why does he feel drawn there?_

_~_

He wakes up again a few hours later, his brain still muddled, his eyes feeling like they’ve got mounds of Jakku’s sands trapped behind them. 

The second he wakes up he wants to roll back over and fall asleep again, but he makes the mistake of looking in the direction of his comm and sees the damned thing flashing, loses hope almost instantly. He’s got missed calls. For all he know the entire base could be burning down outside his door. 

“BeeBee-Ate?” He sits up. His droid is gone--his bedroom door is shut, but his droid is gone, which means it’s late. _He’s_ probably late. For...something. 

There’s always something. 

It’s been months since the fighting ended. He’s a real general now, his worst fear. He hasn’t even sat down in a ship in weeks. Hasn’t gone anywhere, hasn’t flown. He’s stuck here, on the ground, and--

His heart clenches. He doubles over, wincing, one hand pressing against his temple as the pain sets in and his pulse turns loud, thrumming in his ears. _Not again--_

Footsteps echo down the hall and someone walks past, talking, their words mumbled and incoherent but their _feelings_ sharp, pointed, _sad_ as the sound fades and the duck into the next corridor. He takes a deep, steadying breath, squeezes his blankets in his fist. Breathes. 

_Shields up,_ he thinks, because that’s how Finn always describes it--the way they have to protect themselves, the way _he_ has to protect himself, because feeling thoughts and emotions come naturally to him, apparently. 

_“The Force is like everything else,”_ Rey had told him one day. _“Strengths and weaknesses.”_

He’s shaking. He’s halfway out of bed and his feet wobble as he takes a step, forces himself to stand up. He takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes, and looks toward the door before turning to his closet, where clean clothes--ones that don’t smell like sweat and grease because _oops,_ he’d fallen asleep dreaming again--wait for him, hanging in neat rows. 

He didn’t ask for this--didn’t ask to be a freak. 

Because _Finn_ doesn’t get like this. Rey doesn’t either. They’re both strong, stronger than strong, and he’s watched them _lift boulders_ and spar on the sides of _mountains_ and then there’s _him,_ and he’s just--

Someone knocks on his door. 

He jumps, startled, but then he senses Finn. 

“Come in,” he says, tossing a shirt over his torso, straightening his arms to tug out the wrinkles. “Hey, Finn.”

“Hey,” Finn says. He doesn’t come in, just leans against the door, his expression tense, his arms at his sides. “You just wake up?” 

Embarrassed, Poe nods. 

Finn’s got his feelings locked away, hidden, but Poe still catches a glimpse of a tangle of yellow-bright fear behind his shields. He goes on the alert almost immediately. 

“What happened?” He asks, rummaging around his room for a spare rations bar, because he’s getting the distinct feeling that there won’t be time for breakfast today.

Finn’s lips press together in a tight line. “Trouble,” he says, turning toward the hall. “C’mon.” 

~

He should be used to this now but he isn’t--when Finn goes into General Mode, he loses everything that makes him... _him._ He’s serious now, deadly serious as they walk into the main command room, and maybe Poe should be too, but he’s mostly just...confused. 

“Hey buddy--you gonna tell me what happened? Or…?” He stops at the console, then looks around at the assortment of officers and techs in assembled in the room and frowns. There’s a very distinctive presence missing. He’s not sure why he didn’t feel it before. “Wait, where’s Rey?” 

The tension in the room _shifts,_ goes up by a dozen notches at _least,_ and Poe’s suddenly struck by guilt that leaves Finn in _waves._

“She’s gone,” he says, and Poe panics but Finn notices instantly and elaborates-- “She vanished. Left. Took a ship and took apart the tracker--we can’t find her. _I_ can’t find her.” 

He imagines the world without Rey for a second, imagines their fleet without Rey, imagines the base without her face or her warmth or her leadership or her--

“Poe.” Finn’s at his side, so close their shoulders are nearly touching. “Poe. We need you. We need your help.” 

“I--” he swallows, pushes down the absolute terror that’s in his stomach, roiling, churning because _it’s a big galaxy and Rey is strong but there’s no telling where she could be and they need her here._ “I’m going after her.” 

Finn _snorts._ “Not alone you’re not.” 

“We can’t both leave,” Poe argues, “you have to stay here. Be a general.”

“There’s two of us, Poe--” 

“All the more reason for me to go.” 

Finn sighs, moves so that he’s leaning on the console with his elbows. His gaze briefly looks down to the lightsaber hanging off his belt, and Poe is suddenly struck by Finn’s reasoning and he’s angry, _oh_ he’s angry, because Finn’s stronger than he is and it isn’t fair because _he cares about Rey too._

Poe growls. At his side, Finn stiffens. 

“Poe,” he begins, but Poe puts one hand on the console and turns it on, bringing up coordinates, statistics, locations. “Poe, let me go.” 

“I’m going,” Poe says, almost snarling the words. He moves to turn a knob, moves to narrow in on Rey’s last location, but his anger surges as his anxiety does and the images waver, thrum, _crack_ as his powers strain and swirl beneath his skin and the console cracks where his palm meets the glass. 

He steps back, a pained cry in his throat, and croaks out an apology as he stumbles backward, colliding with the tech that comes up to observe the damage. 

He swings around, and the woman is looking at him with terrified eyes, innocent, and so so young, clear of the scars war brings and leaves like a bounty, like a sick sort of _reward._

“Poe,” Finn murmurs, and Poe jerks away, _angry, furious with himself_ for losing control like this, and especially in front of people, in front of Finn. 

Rey’s presence warms in his mind unbidden, and before she probes his mind further he tears himself away, cuts himself off from Finn and Rey _completely,_ breaks into a run as he leaves the command center and heads toward the hangar. 

_Kriff._ He didn’t _ask_ for this, didn’t ask to be Force-sensitive. Finn handles it all so easily, and Rey, well--Rey excels at anything she can her hands on. The things he’s seen her do...they’re things he could never dream of. Meanwhile, he’s just--

“Poe!” 

The voice is familiar, almost shrill but edged with disdain. 

He forces himself to turn around, a tense smile on his face, one hand slipping behind him to rub his neck. “Pava,” he greets the other pilot, nodding in her direction. “Need something?”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes widen. “Do _I_ need something? You want to explain to me why I have half our commanders on my comms asking me where you are?”

He scowls. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.” 

It comes out harsher than he intends it too, but Pava’s got tough skin and even _then_ she winces, shakes her head as she looks at him, pity clear in her eyes. “I hope you know what you’re doing, _General_ Dameron.” 

He hates being called that and she knows it--stubborn kid. “Don’t worry. I do.” 

He turns, flipping her a departing salute, and disappears into the hangar. 

“Rey,” he mumbles in between steps, eyeing his ship from a few steps away. “Where are you?” 

BB-8 burbles at him from a distance, and he looks up, unsurprised to find the droid winding his way between a few of the stationary X-Wings. 

“Hey, buddy,” he greets, “ready for a road trip?” 

BB-8 whirs softly. 

“No, don’t worry about that,” Poe snorts, glancing sideways at the hangar’s entrance. Jessica Pava is still standing in the same spot. “Don’t worry about that,” he mumbles, hauling himself into the cockpit. “I’m sure Finn knows where we’re going.” 

He can feel him still, bumping softly against his senses, trying to project warmth, calm, something, anything to get Poe to step back, probably, think. 

And stars--maybe he does need that. His hands are shaking terribly as he goes to jab at the controls, shaking so fiercely that he barely manages to grab at the steering. 

BB-8 boots up the rest of the systems. Poe leans back, takes a deep breath, and shuts his eyes. He opens himself up again, _sort of,_ and ignores all the thoughts bumping around in his head in an attempt to will away the anger thrumming beneath his skin.

Immediately, he’s somewhere else. 

And he’s not alone. 

_“Poe Dameron.”_

_He turns around at the voice, lets a furious snarl out of his mouth as he grabs at his belt. There’s no blaster._

_No blaster._

_No blaster._

_He’s alone and defenseless and Kylo Ren is standing behind him--_

_“I’m not going to hurt you,” Ren says, and Poe snorts._

_“Rey said you’d changed,” he says, sneering. “I’d say the new look’s an improvement.”_

_Ren’s got a blueish glow around him, and there’s hazy, wiry energy forming a halo around his arms, legs, and shoulders, buzzing and popping in Poe’s ears as he stares._

_He’s dead, but not quite. Seeing him...gives Poe mixed feelings._

_Because looking at him now, he can sense that everything Rey saw and felt in him is real, genuine, and true. Not only that, powerful--the man is a beacon of light, the chaos that had once consumed him just a cavern in the back of his mind._

_“Rey,” Ren says softly, the word like a prayer, respectful and full of...love? “How is she?”_

_Poe snorts, turns around, glares at the dunes._

_“Dameron,” Ren says, sighing, “please. I don’t have much time.”_

_“You busy over there in the afterlife?” Poe bites out, anger flaring in his chest. “Leaving her like that— it crushed her, Ren.”_

_Behind him, he feels the way his words hurt Ren, jab at his heart, sizzling like an old wound._

_“You’re all she has left,” he says, and Poe whirls back around, vigorously shaking his head._

_“No, no I’m not.” He snaps. “She has others. Finn and Rose and Chewie and-“_

_“You’re all she has left,” Ren says again, and then he’s vanishing, disappearing into the wind._

_For a single second, all Poe hears is the sound is sand roaring in his ears._

BB-8 is shrieking. 

They’re flying, not crashing, which is an improvement, considering he was daydreaming—or just dreaming? What the hell was that, anyway?—and he blinks, assessing the situation. 

They’re in hyperspace, which is odd, because _he doesn’t remember initiating that_ and BB-8 is being strangely quiet at the controls. 

Poe’s lips twist into an unamused scowl as he grabs manual control of the ship again, taps at the buttons on the dash until their coordinates appear. “BeeBee-Ate, you wanna explain why we’re headed to Jakku?” 

The word twists his stomach into a tight coil. Surely that can’t be a coincidence. Surely. 

Above him, BB-8 beeps, clicks out a confused reply. 

And Poe blinks up at him, just as confused. “I was _what?_ ”

Another burble. 

“Sleep-talking,” Poe mutters, snorting. “That’s a new one. 

The bright blues and purples of space swirl around them as they fly. 

Grumbling, he settles back and waits for Jakku to come into view. 

~

They land, and Poe gets out of his ship to discover that yes, Jakku is just as dry and dusty and hot and _miserable_ as he (unfortunately) remembers it. 

The sheer finality of the place hits him hard as his feet meet the ground. There’s not a drop of moisture in the air. The whole place feels heavy, ancient, and... _depressing,_ if he’s being honest. There’s a graveyard of broken ships in the distance, ghosts of a past decades gone. 

There’s a cold in his lungs in spite of the heat. Poe takes a step, belatedly wondering if it's the ghosts he’s somehow sensing, and shoves the thought into the back of his mind.

He picks a direction and sticks with it, ignores the way the whole place pans out in his head--sand, sand, and more sand, _great--_ and when BB-8 beeps out an anxious query, he turns back to the X-Wing, shakes his head, grimaces. 

“”f anyone tries to take this ship apart, blast ‘em,” he says, “that’s an order.”

BB-8’s response is less than amused. 

_He’ll be fine,_ Poe thinks, shuffling through the sand. It’s not like this is going to take long, especially...especially since he’s not even sure why he’s here in the first place. 

The cold in his chest suddenly grows stronger. He stops, glancing back up at his ship, hidden by the dunes. The sky is clear. There’s nothing around him but wind and flying sand--he’s _almost_ certain he’d sense it if there was any danger. 

He takes another step forward, but the cold _shifts,_ moves from his chest to his shoulders, and he turns around again, face screwing into an irritated wince. 

What the hell is going on?

The wind blows, and along with it he hears... _something,_ only it doesn’t speak in words exactly and he gets the meaning all the same. He’s going the wrong way. He shifts directions and starts toward one of the fallen Destroyers, biting his lip. 

This Force stuff is confusing, and it’s _almost_ overwhelming enough to--

No. Not that. He has no interest in that. He’s handling this fine. _Fine._

He makes it to the top of the next dune--his ship is still within his view, but barely, and he doesn’t like that, but the cold is pressing him further onward--and his heart stutters in his ship. 

He can see Rey’s ship on the horizon. 

There’s no smoke coming from it, which is probably a safe sign that she’s okay, but he still can’t feel her. He keeps going, panic writhing in his gut, and slips, yelping as he falls down the dune, the word spinning sideways as he lands on flat ground, sand in his ears, his mouth, his eyes.

He groans. 

And then a warmth prickles at the edge of his senses, and he latches onto it so quickly and so hard that he can feel Rey’s surprise as she answers nervous call, and even though he’s panting as he stands back up, dusting the sand off his pants and jacket, he lets out a relieved sigh. 

Rey’s okay. She’s _okay._ They’ll find each other, and he’ll convince her to come back home, and then they can go back home and things will be fine again, normal, and maybe then, _maybe_ he’ll get his abilities under control and he’ll--

_Finn’s coming,_ he thinks, as the winds swirl in a new direction and a new energy buzzes in the back of his mind. 

He grits his teeth and tries not to think about how the wind feels like it’s spinning faster around him now, or how there’s a fire burning in his chest, small but getting bigger as he stands here, fists clenched, glaring up at the sky. 

_Finn,_ he thinks, the word like a curse, just as angry. _I told you to stay._

Then again, Finn’s never been the best at taking orders. 

He...probably has something to do with that. 

~

_The desert is angrier than it's ever been, and in the center of it all, Rey looks up._

_Finn is here, worry filling him, his mind working tirelessly to shove it away for peace, peace, peace in its place._

_And Poe was here first, but Poe’s just angry, these days, and restless, and...stubborn._

_The Force is at work here--she wonders if they can feel it. They’re together now for a reason._

_She looks up at the grave markers in front of her and sighs, places two palms on blistering hot stone._

_~_

Storms are a thing here, apparently. 

He looks up, minutes into trying to get a feel for where Finn landed, and curses himself for not paying more attention to his surroundings. Rey’s ship, his one true landmark, is gone, obscured by the wall of sand that’s coming closer, closer to where he stands. 

A sandstorm--absolutely fantastic. Just what he needed! And no hope of safety in sight. 

“Kriff,” he mumbles, turning around. He runs--slips? Jogs? Sand isn’t his favorite, he’s learning--up the dune behind him but can’t see his ship either, and there’s no way his comms are going to work in this storm, which means…

He’s alone. 

_Kriff._

He takes off running in the opposite direction of the storm. 

Past the dunes, the sand gives way to harder terrain, easier to walk on, but rocky. The air smells strange--dusty, but without the particles that filled it on the dunes--and completely devoid of the rain Poe would normally associate with a storm. 

_Sand_ storms sound worse--scarier, with nothing but the wind to aid them in their destructive path. _This one_ is a hell of a thing, big enough to blot out the entire sky, and the worst part is it’s still boiling hot outside, and he’s running, running, running until he can’t anymore, until he’s _wheezing,_ gasping for breath, and he nearly collapses with the inability to breathe. 

He’s already lost track of how long he’s been here. There’s a storm outside. He’s _tired._

But at least he has this lovely little cave. 

“Little”, as it turns out, is a terrible way to describe the place--the cave is hollow and _deep,_ with smaller tunnels that branch out in half a dozen directions at once. 

He’s...going to get lost in here, if he starts wandering. Problem is, the storm’s howling outside, and if he stays in the main room, the sand’s going to come in and he’s already eaten enough to last a lifetime. 

He heads down the closest tunnel against his better instincts. 

And immediately finds himself lost five seconds later. 

This, he thinks, is probably what the Force is for. 

~

Finn finds him a little while later. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been, but the sun is rising when they leave. The cave floor is covered in sand. The walls are scratched and gouged in places. The air is thin and dry as they walk out into the sunlight, but then Finn stops and waits, and when Poe turns back to look at him, he immediately gets ready for a fight. 

Finn’s arms are crossed. “I think we need to talk.”

“I thought I told you to stay,” Poe snaps, the wound still sore, his temper still pricked. 

But Finn just sighs, gives him a pitying look. “You can’t give me orders.”

“I can damn well try.”

Finn snorts. 

“Rey’s out there, somewhere,” Poe mutters, one hand jutting upward to block out the sun. “Her ship--I saw it earlier, lost sight of it when the storm hit.” No telling when another could roll in-- they have to work fast.

“They were still repairing the console when I left,” Finn says, and Poe’s heart skips a beat. 

“Right,” he says, wincing. They’re going there. Finn’s just like always--straight to the point. “Finn--”

“It’s hard, at first,” Finn says. “Feels big and--and overwhelming. But it gets better, once you learn control.” He stops on that word, emphasizes it. 

_Control--_ like it’s all so easy, like it’s important, like he’s--

“Poe,” Finn whispers, and Poe realizes, with horror and fear and shame that’s red-bright, that Finn can feel every bit of what’s going through his head. “Poe, we need to talk.”

Poe winces, hisses out an exhale through his teeth. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” 

“Rey said she offered to train you.” Finn’s stare roots Poe to the spot. “She said you said no.” 

“I did.” 

“You need to change your mind.” 

Anger and fear crash into him simultaneously and honestly, he’s not sure how to respond to that. 

“You don’t...have to become a Jedi,” Finn says slowly. “It’s--you need...control, Poe.” A beat, silent. Then, “you could hurt someone.”

Oh, _oh_ , now Poe’s heard enough. 

“Come on,” he snarls, before his anger can get the best of him _again_ and he hurt’s Finn’s pride. “Let’s go find Rey.”

He makes it five steps before he turns around and realizes Finn isn’t following him. 

The cave is suddenly _very_ cold. 

“Kriff,” Poe mumbles, because the world blurs and there’s a glowing blue light at the end of the tunnel, and he’s suddenly keenly aware that this isn’t the first time he’s seen this kind of thing before--

_Kylo Ren is waiting for him at the end of the cave._

_“You came,” he says, deadpan. “I was starting to wonder.”_

_“This is a dream,” Poe mumbles, fingernails digging into his palm. The pain does nothing to wake him up--he’s trapped. He curses. “Why can’t I--you’re dead--”_

_“Everyone has their ghosts,” Ren says, wistful. “You’re one of mine.”_

_Poe stares at him, dumbfounded. “Excuse me?”_

_“You have much to learn,” Ren says, sounding all for the world like a Jedi Master, haughty and far too sure of himself. “Don’t worry. I won’t bother you for long.” He sounds almost hesitant, like he’s not enjoying this, and that, of all things, calms Poe down, just a little._

_He leans against the wall and waits for Ren to speak again._

_“She hides it from you,” Ren says, “the pain she’s in. The traitor feels it--”_

_“His name is Finn,” Poe snarls._

_“Finn.” The name is clumsy in Ren’s mouth. “Fate relies on her heavier than you know. She needs you.”_

_“You care about her.” He can feel it in Ren’s words, and the sensation curdles his stomach, burns like acid. “Why?”_

_Ren’s lips twist. “I thought you were just a pilot.”_

_“Yeah? So did I.”_

_“Don’t let her be alone,” Ren says, “don’t let her carry the burden alone.”_

_“Burden,” Poe echoes, “what burden? Hey--hey! Ren! Don’t you dare disappear on me again--what the hell are you talking about?”_

_“My name,” Ren’s voice echoes in his ears, a soft, dying whisper. “Is Ben.”_

“Poe?” 

He blinks. 

“Poe…?” Finn’s standing in front of him, staring, looking confused and concerned all at once. “Did you...see anything just now?” 

“Um.” Poe swallows, inhales slowly. “I--” 

“Poe?” A familiar voice interrupts him, and Rey’s head pops into the cave. “Finn,” she greets, smiling a small smile. “Are you going to stand in this cave all day?” 

“Hopefully not,” Poe mutters, grateful for the distraction. “Got something better?”

“A bit,” Rey says, sidling out of the cave. She tilts her head to look back at them, smiling wryly. “Coming?” 

Finn just sighs.

~

He replays the dream--vision?--in his head as they walk, replays the way Ren--Ben? No, he’ll always, _always_ be Ren to Poe--sounded when he spoke, the pure pain in his voice, borderline pleading. 

Against his better instincts, he finds himself trusting Ren--trusting his words. Rey is shouldering something she won’t speak of; if he focuses, he can almost sense how she’s hiding it.

He feels...connected to Finn and Rey in a way he can’t explain. They’ve been through a war together, fought battles, gained scars in the name of a cause they believed in. They’ve all seen their share of hard times--any one of them’s seen enough for three lifetimes--and they trust each other. 

Or so he’s always thought. 

Maybe there’s some things that can’t be said, some secrets that can’t be shared...ever. 

He’s not sure why he’s so hurt by that.

Next to him, Finn sighs. Poe holds himself back from looking in his direction and keeps his gaze forward, intent on the path. Rey is a few paces ahead of them both, knows the terrain like the back of her hand. In the distance, he can see the dunes, and _oh--kriff--_

“BeeBee-Ate is here,” Rey says, probably sensing Poe’s sudden panic. “He came last night.”

“What about the scavengers?” Poe asks, guarding his tone carefully. “Won’t they…”

Rey looks at him, an eyebrow raised. “They won’t come here.” 

Poe snorts. “A day in and you’ve already got the locals scared of you.” 

“I was a local, once.” 

He knows, oh he knows. She still has the wildness in her eyes from her years spent here, still has her defenses up from years spent alone and he wonders--

“I wish you’d tell me what you’re thinking.” 

They’ve stopped walking. 

Poe stares at her, glances from Rey to Finn and stops, wincing. Finn looks severely uncomfortable--so is he, to be honest--and he’s seconds away from asking Rey what she’s doing here so they can just _go home_ when he sees it. And he freezes. 

There are two massive slabs of stone in the dirt, decorated with scraps of metal, adorned with bits of colored paper. 

They’re carved in places, words shallow, almost unreadable, but they’re there, and they’re… sweet, a goodbye, an ode to a pair of strangers, names unknown. 

“Rey?” Finn’s voice is tense, thick with emotion. “What is this?” 

“It’s a memorial,” Rey says simply. “My parents…” 

Poe feels the moment the sorrow takes hold of Finn. The same feeling resonates between both of them, and Rey doesn’t have to say anything else. They understand. 

“I come here when I need to think,” Rey says. “If I disappear suddenly--”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Poe interrupts her, sensing the guilt beneath her words. “I get it. We all have our ghosts.” _Some of them are more literal than others._

There’s a closeness that hangs between them as they stand here, a trust that Poe latches onto and _holds,_ close to his chest, embracing it for all its warmth and peace and light. 

The wind blows, knocking a shard of metal off one of the stones with it. It falls into the sand and Finn reaches out his hand, slowly, slowly lifting the shard into the air, drawing it closer, higher up onto the stone. Then, with a thrust, he forces the shard into the stone again, deeper this time. It sticks. The whole thing thrums with an energy Poe feels more than hears, and he smiles, sad. 

What was it Rey had said, before they’d realized where they were? _“I wish you’d tell me what you’re thinking.”_ Stars, does he wish that too. 

~

Night falls again. 

He dreams. It’s chaotic and frenzied, bits and pieces of a dream that’s too much to see all at once. It hurts--he’s standing in a pavilion, one hand extended, one hand shaking at his side. The hand that’s lifted is shaking too, but for a different reason--there’s someone on the other end, resisting him, and he’s--

The images change. He’s in the refresher back at the base, and he’s got his hand on the mirror, and then he’s touching the console and everything he touches _breaks--_

“Poe!”

He sits up, screams. 

Rey and Finn are both awake, both standing over him. The lights are on. He can see their faces--they’re both concerned. 

He stands up, scoots away from them, and puts his head in his hands. There’s another storm howling outside, but Rey’s hovel is protected from the elements. It’s just them--there’s nowhere to go, and he’s...trapped. 

Finn excuses himself, goes back to his cot, and falls back to sleep. 

Poe is _wired--_ couldn’t go back to sleep if he _tried._

“When was the last time you meditated?” Rey asks, coming up beside him. 

He doesn’t answer. It’s been too long. 

Rey hums. He looks at her. She points toward the back room, cloaked by a single blanket. “Meditation room,” she says, lips pressing together as her eyes go glassy, sleepy. “Go.” 

He laughs, humorless, and does as he’s told. 

Maybe, if he calms down enough, he’ll be able to fall back asleep after all. 

And if not, well. In the morning, they’ll help Rey finish whatever she needs to do and then they’ll leave, and maybe, _maybe_ he’ll reconsider his choices, maybe he’ll talk to her about training, because there’s power in her hands and yes--hurting someone is the last thing he wants to do. 

But they’ll be together. And that’ll count for something--something worth more than he knows. 

~

Finn leaves early the next morning. Poe gets the same call he does, but whether by instinct or just sheer luck, Finn offers to go first and Poe lets him. He needs to talk to Rey anyway. 

He overhears the conversation by accident--he’s got his feelings in check, now, made sure of it after his nightmare had awoken them both, so he’s not worried about being found, but all the same--

“I had a vision,” Finn admits slowly, “of Ren--Ben.” 

Poe can almost _hear_ Rey’s jaw drop. 

“It was...confusing. He wasn’t making much sense, I don’t know--” Finn breaks off, sighs. “You’re not alone, Rey.” 

A chill runs through Poe. He couldn’t have-- _no._

They start whispering, and Poe can’t hear what they say next as he comes around the corner, just in time to watch Finn hop into his ship and take off. 

“When we get back,” he says, headed toward his own ship, “I’m going to take you up on that training offer.” 

A nervous thrill runs through Rey. “Really?” 

“Really.” Poe smiles at her. 

“Fly safe,” Rey says, returning the grin. 

Poe nods. “May the Force be with you and all that.” 

“And with you,” Rey chuckles, amused. 

He’s nervous as he jumps into the cockpit, nervous as BB-8 settles in and they start to take off. 

Jedi training. He has _that_ to look forward to now. He can puzzle out his visions later--he has a job to do now, and more to do when they land, but _stars above--_

He’s missed flying.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a kudo and a comment on your way out! <3


End file.
